Hours Locations

New Look Menu

Watkins gives you a rare opportunity when discussing the marginalized ‘other’—he has experienced polarizing views of a city that’s been slammed with injustices for decades. A Baltimore native, Watkins went from dropping out of school and selling drugs to being a professor and standing on the front lines with a Baltimore as it virtually exploded following the death of Freddie Gray. Watkins doesn’t mask anything—his raw truth a perspective that is too often ignored.

In this ambitious and eminently readable book, Aidi magnifies the intersections between Islam, music and youth social activism. Hip hop, Samba, Reggae, Gnawa and Sufi Rock all have their turn as Aidi jettisons the tired doomsday narrative associated with Muslim youth and focuses instead on how music embodies their struggles to gain footholds in increasingly ambivalent or hostile societies. Aidi takes us to locales as diverse as Brazil, France, Morocco and the US for a look at the role of Muslims in uprisings and social justice movements, the interaction between oppressed communities and Islam, and how contemporary Muslims remold an array of musical genres into their own distinct tools of liberation.

One of the best books in recent memory to address the politics of race in America is Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide (Morrow, $27.99) by MSNBC national correspondent Joy-Ann Reid. A smart, rigorous reporter and an eloquent writer, Reid combines keen journalistic insight with excellent historical research in examining how race has influenced American politics. Focusing primarily on the relationship between Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, Reid exposes the challenges that race poses for the Democratic Party along the historical continuum, and what racial politics might mean in the 2016 election. This much-needed and highly original book leaves the reader with the sad realization that, even after the election of our first black president, America still has a long way to go to repair the political fracture and close the racial divide.